


And They Shall Beat Their Swords Into Ploughshares

by shulkie



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: CAN'T STOP, M/M, WON'T STOP, canonverse, knitting AU, older Eren, older levi, sad but not angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shulkie/pseuds/shulkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after the Titans are defeated and Humanity's Strongest can no longer wield a blade?</p>
            </blockquote>





	And They Shall Beat Their Swords Into Ploughshares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ninanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninanna/gifts).



> Nin wanted another knitting!Levi AU. I'm sorry, I don't think this was the fluff you wanted. T_T My bad. I forgot how to fluff.
> 
> I know a lot of knitters who battle chronic illness including a friend who has Parkinson's and that was the inspiration behind this fic.
> 
> My tumblr is [perksofbeingawaifu](http://perksofbeingawaifu.tumblr.com/).

Hanji was the first to notice the tremor in the Corporal’s hands. Even though she’d lost one eye, the other was still just as keen and she caught sight of the way his forefinger tapped against his thumb even when he wasn’t releasing the pitons. He hid it well and never complained, yet she made the call to approach Erwin. Until she pointed it out, Erwin hadn’t seen how the graceful soldier now moved with even more caution, how Levi wasn’t as surefooted in the 3DMG as he had been before, and how his weight sometimes shifted unpredictably in the straps, causing him to arc out further and miss his mark.

Then, during a training demonstration, Levi’s blade—for the first time in his entire career—failed to cut all the way through the neck of the dummy Titan. He quickly corrected his error, but word was already out.

“Erwin’s prize fighting dog has lost its bite.” Levi heard one new recruit laugh into his cups and he felt his back stiffen but marched past with the same terrifying expression in his eyes he always wore and the laughter quickly died.

The worst was when one of his new team members filled his cup with tea while he looked over the day’s roster. The cup slipped from his fingertips and crashed to the floor. The entire mess hall stopped to look. The novice apologized over and over again, but Levi only stared at his hands in horror.

After this incident Erwin was forced to make a visit to Eren who confirmed what they all knew: Humanity’s Strongest could no longer wield his blades.

“This is humiliating,” Levi hissed.

He’d traded in his twin blades for twin sticks, hand carved and sanded by Connie as a retirement gift. They were beautiful but Levi resented them. Simply another reminder that his body was failing him. Levi slipped the needle through the loop and then brought the thick wool up and around.

“I give up. I think that doctor was a quack.”

He caught sight of the slight flutter in his fingers and stopped, heart hammering. Please don’t let Eren have seen that.

“Did I ever tell you about my first day in the gear?” Eren asked.

Come to think of it, no, he hadn’t.

“I flipped upside-down. Most of the squad saw my asscheeks.”

Levi hid a smile at that image.

“So you know what I did? I dragged Armin and Mikasa out to practice. And you know what happened?”

“You practiced until you got better?”

“No. I cracked my head open. It made a sound like an egg on a sidewalk. So then I went around begging all the others for tips and then—“

“Eventually that Jaeger tenacity won out and you went on to become top of your class?”

“No. My gear was defective.”

Levi snorted, then sighed, looking at the knitting needles in his hands.

“You were a prodigy,” Eren reminded him. “And you were good at what you did. Now you just need to learn something new. Give it time.”

And Levi tried. He really tried. The needle slipped from the stitch and clattered on the floor.

“I will get so far and then I’ll forget what I’m doing!” Levi cried as Eren fished it out from under his feet.

“Here,” Eren said, leaning over the back of the sofa, brushing a strand of silver behind Levi’s ear. “Hold it like so to get the tension right.”

Eren wrapped the yarn around his pinky and then under his ring finger and the remaining stump of his middle and over his index knuckle. A self-cannibalizing titan—the irony was not lost on either of them. The parts of Eren’s hand he was forced to eat himself never regenerated like his other limbs.

“Well, you get the idea,” Eren said shrugging. Even with two fingers missing from his right hand he was still better at knitting than Levi.

“How’d you learn?” Levi asked one day as they sat on the porch, basking in the late day shade.

“My mother taught me.” Eren said, setting down a tray for the two of them to enjoy.

“Hm,” Levi said, squinting his eyes, either from the sharp rays of sun peeking over the rubble of the walls or because he was trying to remember his next stitch.

<*>

“They think they can just force me out like that! I offered up my heart and I’m just cast-aside!” Levi said in a snarl, tossing things about. “Where are my straps? I’m not wearing the dress uniform, I’m wearing my gear! I should have my own team, not be some decorated public figure to stand there and wave at civilians during parades. Eren! Where are they?”

Eren said nothing, but watched from the doorway.

“Did I come at a bad time, sir?” the man next to Eren asked nervously.

“Oluo, if you continue to talk about me like I’m not here the next time you bite your tongue I will make sure you bite it off and swallow it!” Levi chastised, pointing at him.

“Sir?” the man asked, now worried. “I’m Billups, sir.”

“I know that!” Levi snapped. “My mind is fine! I am perfectly fine! Where are my straps? Eren!”

Eren stepped forward and gently pulled the straps from Levi’s hands where they had been the entire time.

“I’m not losing my mind!” Levi insisted, but he could feel eyes upon him and his face grew heated in embarrassment.

“We’re not going to make it to the parade today,” Eren informed Billups. “Give Commander Smith our regards.”

“I’m not crazy, Eren, I’m not,” Levi pleaded, still running the leather straps through his hands. “Tell them I’m not.”

“You’re not crazy, my love. There will be other parades,” Eren consoled him.

They stayed in that night, Levi curled up in his favorite armchair in front of the fire, the stray cat dozing on his lap as Levi quietly fumbled with the stitches. When he dared to look up from them, ashamed over his earlier outburst, Eren was watching him fondly.

“I’m sorry,” Levi apologized.

“Don’t be.”

<*>

Some days where better than others.

“I finished it,” Levi said, holding out the scarf.

“Can I touch it?” Mia asked, reaching out her fingers.

“Did you wash your hands?”

“Yes, see?” she said, showing him the front and backs.

She inherited her father’s sharp eyes but Levi saw her mother’s reserved stature in the way she carried her tiny self.

“Daddy said Uncle Eren gave Mommy a scarf like this when they were my age,” she said, stroking it.

“Well poppet, how about you keep this one?” Levi said, placing it over her shoulders and flinging it back like how the fancy ladies wear their silks in Mitras.

She buried her nose in it and crawled up on his lap.

“Will you teach me?” she asked.

He wrapped her small hands around the needles and when Jean stopped by to pick her up she had completed a small square.

“Look Daddy! Look what Corporal taught me!”

“How lovely,” Jean said, lifting her into his arms.

If Levi could make a square for Mia in that short amount of time, he could make another just as quickly. He didn’t know who he was making it for until he was halfway through and realized the heather blue was the same as the pale flecks in Farlan’s grey eyes.

<*>

“Can I help you, sir?” the shop clerk sneered at him. “Maybe you should go home and sleep it off? Come back sober?”

Levi has never been drunk in his life. He could drink Moblit under the table back in the day and never get so much as tipsy.

“I need this color!” Levi insisted, holding out the pink mountain blossom, the same flower Oluo had tucked behind Petra’s ear one spring afternoon as they hung the laundry. Oluo, the poor bastard, had meant to kiss her but was too shy. Levi remembered she wore the flower all day.

“Please, sir, decent folk are trying to shop here.”

Fleegel came out to see what the commotion was about.

“You will help this man,” the rotund businessman said, clapping his fat fingers on his clerk’s shoulder and gripping them tightly. “Whatever he needs, you get him. You understand? This is Lance Corporal Levi Ackerman. He’s a hero.”

But Levi didn’t feel like a hero.

<*>

“What’s he making?” Armin asked in the doorway.

Armin never came inside, he was always too busy with one meeting or another. Once the boy had lingered in doorways because he was too afraid to let his presence be known and now his confident stride never made it past the threshold when he visited.

Levi was barely aware of their existence, his fingers zipped along, the wool making a soft noise as it slipped through his fingers.

“He’s just knitting squares. I think he’s making a quilt,” Eren told him quietly.

The blanket had overtaken the parlor. Levi stitched each square together with care. Sunflower yellow for Nanaba’s hair. White like Isabel’s bird. A dark charcoal that looked like the burnt edge of a matchstick which Mike said was his favorite smell. Red like the garnet ring Eld hoped to buy one day for his sweetheart. All of these he had carefully assembled and stretched across their living space so Eren had hop from the sofa to the kitchen.

“Out!” Levi snapped at the tomcat who was watching the process with curiosity and a raised paw. He only twitched one mangled ear in annoyance, but stayed on the edge, flicking his tail.

“How much longer do you think this will take?” Eren asked cautiously.

“I need more light in here,” Levi ordered. “The windows are filthy, that’s why I can’t see anything.”

The windows were fine. Levi’s eyesight was going, but he refused to see the spectacle maker around the corner. He didn’t need to see to knit, however. Eren watched him at night silently counting stitches, feeling along in the dark with his fingers.

<*>

When the quilt was finally finished and the day arrived to give it away, Levi suddenly felt silly. A foolish old man with his ridiculous blanket. If they didn’t mock him before, they surely would now. The veterans of the Survey Corp each carried a gift to the Queen for her Coronation anniversary. Historia was barely recognizable. Her fake smile plastered on with pancake makeup and heavy rouge. He remembered when she first came to him with sad large eyes and a counterfeit name. But then, they had all come to him unsure of their abilities and intimidated by his prowess and he had made them into warriors.

“Corporal,” she welcomed him, accepting his gift.

All of the gifts were purely ceremonial. Today was a day for remembrance.

“It’s a blanket—a quilt,” he shrugged, his head bobbing and he stepped back next to Eren.

It was too heavy for him to give and too heavy for her to accept so the attendants set it folded in front of her. Historia ran her hands over his uneven stitches and Levi was embarrassed. Her manicured nails tapped a badge—Levi had sewn hundreds of badges over the past few weeks. One for each square. Each one had incredibly small stitches, but held fast. This was their resting place. This was their home.

“Oh,” she breathed in recognition.

Her attendants moved to take it from her but she instead had them unfold it. They each took a side and Historia held her breath as it open like a pair of wings before her. For the first time in several years, Levi could see actual emotion behind her made up face. Before they could stop her, she shrugged off her ornate mantle.

“Commander Smith,” she asked Erwin, wiping tears from her face. “Could you?”

He removed his green cloak from his shoulders and Levi’s shaking hands fasten it.

“Corporal,” she addressed him, clapping her fist over her breast.

Others followed their queen. The nobility imitated her but Levi could see in the crowd the old heroes. Those who watched their comrades die or lost their own limbs, those who truly offered up their heart. Eren’s eyes were on him, his hand over his heart. Only when Levi released his salute did they dare let go.

After the fireworks, Levi walked next to Eren, gripping his forearm as they went down the stairs to their home.

“That was nice of her,” Levi said after a few moments.

“It was,” Eren agreed. “I have to say…I thought that quilt was for our bed.”

Levi laughed.

“Oh you did, did you?”

“Yes, I mean, the nights are getting colder, Levi.”

“Not that I’d be able to tell with you in bed. You burn like a furnace.”

“Perhaps you’re right. No quilt then. You can make me a sweater.”

“I’m not taking requests, Eren!” Levi protested.

He did though. It’s a dark green—the same color as the towering forest where Levi lost his team—with cables that ripple up Eren’s torso and snake down his tan arms. Eren hasn’t shown age the same way Levi has. Levi wondered if titan shifters don’t age like humans do, but then he was still fairly young.

“It’s warm,” Eren said, admiring it in the mirror (a gift from Eren’s young team). “But itchy.”

“You wanted it. You will wear it,” Levi ordered.

People continued sending Levi requests for knit items, but he didn’t always indulge them. A pair of mittens for Hanji. Nice thick socks for Erwin.

But the project he’s most proud of is a striped tea cozy, especially on rainy days when his joints ache and Eren brings him tea in bed. On such a day, Levi set the steaming cup aside as Eren’s kisses grew more urgent and they slipped into gentle lovemaking. No longer did Levi wonder where those clouds rumbling outside came from because he’s been to the shores of the ocean and he’s seen the snowy caps of the mountains. He knew what lay beyond the walls and now that they’ve tumbled, he is free.

Levi held Eren’s shoulders and closed his eyes and for a moment he could feel the wind tossing his hair and hear the snap of the cables, but those days are gone. Maybe once he thought it was cruel to have that taken away from him, but as Eren sighed on top of him, he realized that in its own way, it was truly beautiful.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you like, please leave kudos and comments and check out my other fics!


End file.
